Abstract
A stochastic process for assessing the effect of spatial variability of pitting corrosion on structural reliability and fragility is developed for singly reinforced simply supported reinforced concrete (RC) beams in flexure. A distribution of pitting corrosion is inferred from existing literature. The RC beam is discretised into a series of elements and maximum pit depths are generated for each reinforcing steel bar in each element. The analysis considered various member spans, loading ratios, bar diameters and number of bars in a given cross-section. Comparisons made with general corrosion showed that pitting corrosion is more critical for smaller diameter reinforcing steel bars. It was also found that up to a three-fold increase in 50-year probabilities of failure were observed if spatial variability of pitting corrosion are included in the analysis when compared to probabilities of failure based on the mid-span limit states only. This strongly suggests that the inclusion of spatial variability of pitting corrosion can lead to significant decreases in structural reliability for flexural RC members.
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